81 minutes, 13 masterpieces, and the one detail the FBI still can't explain

Two men in Boston police uniforms rang the buzzer at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum just after midnight on March 18, 1990.

They said they were responding to a disturbance call.

The guard on duty let them in.

Inside, the men said they recognized the guard, told him they were there on a report, and asked him to step out.

He did.

The two men overpowered both overnight security guards, bound them with duct tape, and led them to the basement.

Then they went to work.

They spent roughly 81 minutes inside the museum.

Eighty-one minutes to move through the galleries, cut thirteen paintings and objects from their frames, and carry them out to a waiting vehicle.

The haul included masterpieces by Vermeer, Rembrandt, Degas, and Manet.

It included a Vermeer called "The Concert," one of only about 34 known works by the painter.

It included Rembrandt's only seascape, "Storm on the Sea of Galilee."

The empty frames were left hanging on the walls.

The theft was discovered the next morning when the day-shift guard arrived and found the bound night guards.

The crime remains unsolved.

None of the artworks have been recovered.

The identities of the two perpetrators are not established.

They were never identified, and they were never arrested.

Who moves that fast through a museum at night?

Who cuts a Vermeer from its frame in the dark and knows exactly which works to take?

Who leaves the other paintings alone?

That would require evidence.

THE GUARD AT THE DOOR

Richard Abath was the security guard on duty who buzzed the intruders in.

The case record places him at the door around 1:24 a.m., responding to a man in a Boston police uniform who said he was checking a disturbance call.

A second unnamed guard was also on duty that night; both were bound with duct tape in the basement, but neither was physically harmed.

Investigators focused early on the possibility that the thieves had inside knowledge of the museum’s security procedures.

They noted the guards had been subdued quickly.

They noted that specific artworks were targeted while others of equal value were left behind.

Abath was questioned repeatedly in the weeks and months that followed.

He was never considered a suspect by authorities, the case record states.

That is the fact that sits against the weight of a single decision: buzzing two men in police uniforms into a museum after hours.

Whether Abath had any prior knowledge of the theft is not established.

Authorities never considered him a suspect.

He was the guard who let them in, and he was also the guard who was tied up with his colleague in the basement.

The record holds both things at once.

Abath died in 2015.

He was never charged.

He maintained that he was a victim of the crime.

Investigators kept returning to his account, pressing on the details of what the men said, what they wore, how they moved.